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Winner Takes All (New edition)

By Christina Binkley

Paperback

£13.99

From Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and culture critic Christina Binkley comes an updated revision of her New York Times bestelling account of sex, drugs, and the rise of Las Vegas. With a new prologue on the rise and fall of Steve Wynn.

The Strip. Home to some of the world's grandest, flashiest, and most lucrative casino resorts, Las Vegas, with its multitude of attractions, draws millions of tourists from around the world every year. But Sin City hasn't always been booming: modern Vegas exists largely thanks to the extraordinary vision, and remarkable hubris, of three competing business moguls: Kirk Kerkorian, Dr. Gary Loveman, and Steve Wynn.

Having had personal access to all three tycoons, Binkley explains how their audacious efforts to reach the top-and to top one another-shaped the city as it stands. She takes us inside their grandest schemes, their riskiest deals, and the personalities that drove them to their greatest successes, and their most painful defeats. In this updated edition, she reveals the inside story of how Steve Wynn, the winner who took all, ultimately lost everything-twice.

Sharp, insightful, and revealing, Winner Takes All is the gripping story of how billions of dollars and the unparalleled drive for power turned dreams into larger-than-life reality.

Biographical Notes

Christina Binkley is an award-winning journalist who writes and chats about the business of culture. At The Wall Street Journal for 23 years, she covered fashion, gambling, and other topics that familiarized her with larger-than-life personalitie. She is a regular on-air commentator and author of the New York Times bestseller Winner Takes All.Binkley contributes to WSJ Magazine, The New Yorker, The Wall Street Journal, DesignLA and appears periodically on venues such as CNN and National Public Radio. A graduate of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, Binkley was part of a team that won a Pulitzer Prize for coverage of 9/11. She was awarded the Jesse Laventhol Prize for Deadline News Reporting by the American Society of Newspaper Editors. Binkley lives in the hills of Los Angeles with her husband and two teens, with cats, a dog, a passel of chickens and a dead-on view of the Hollywood sign.

Other details

ISBN:
9780316487924

Publication date:
15 Nov 2018

Page count:
336

Imprint:
Hachette Books

PublicAffairs

Why They Do It

Eugene Soltes

Authors:

Eugene Soltes

From the financial fraudsters of Enron, to the embezzlers at Tyco, to the insider traders at McKinsey, to the Ponzi schemer Bernie Madoff, the failings of corporate titans are regular fixtures in the news. In Why They Do It, Harvard Business School professor Eugene Soltes draws from extensive personal interaction and correspondence with nearly fifty former executives as well as the latest research in psychology, criminology, and economics to investigate how once-celebrated executives become white-collar criminals. White-collar criminals are not merely driven by excessive greed or hubris, nor do they usually carefully calculate costs and benefits before breaking the law. Instead, Soltes shows that most of the executives who committed crimes made decisions the way we all do-on the basis of their intuitions and gut feelings. The trouble is that these gut feelings are often poorly suited for the modern business world where leaders are increasingly distanced from the consequences of their decisions and the individuals they impact.The extraordinary costs of corporate misconduct are clear to its victims. Yet, never before have we been able to peer so deeply into the minds of the many prominent perpetrators of white-collar crime. With the increasing globalization of business threatening us with even more devastating corporate misconduct, the lessons Soltes draws in Why They Do It are needed more urgently than ever.

Bitcoin Billionaires

Ben Mezrich

Proud

Ibtihaj Muhammad, Lori Tharps

Authors:

Ibtihaj Muhammad, Lori Tharps

From young outsider to national hero, a timeless, uniquely American tale of hard work, determination, and resilience.Growing up in New Jersey as the only African American Muslim in hijab in town, at school, and on the playing fields, Ibtihaj Muhammad always had to find her own way. When she discovered fencing, a sport traditionally reserved for the wealthy and white, once again she had to defy expectations and make a place for herself in a sport she grew to love. Even though Ibtihaj would start fencing later than most, at 13 years old her talent was undeniable. From winning state championships with her high school team to three-time All-America selections at Duke University, Ibtihaj was poised for success, but the fencing community wasn't ready to welcome her with open arms.Ibtihaj Muhammad's path to Olympic greatness has been marked with opposition and near-debilitating challenges because of her race, religion, and gender. As the only woman of color and the only religious minority on the U.S. women's saber team, again Ibtihaj had to push past stereotypes, misconceptions, and negativity to find her own path to success and Olympic glory. Proud is the inspiring story of how Ibtihaj rose above it all with grace and compassion. She provides an unflinching and honest portrayal of how she managed to stay true to herself and still play by the rules. A coming-of-age story, a hero's journey, and a moving memoir from one of the nation's most influential athletes.

The Unhoneymooners

Christina Lauren

Life Is a Party

David Burtka

Authors:

David Burtka

After years of acting, David Burtka decided to follow his passion and attend cooking school. As the chef and founder of the catering company Gourmet MD, he worked with clients like Katy Perry, Elton John, and Kelly Ripa, and loved bringing people together for social gatherings of all kinds. Life Is a Party offers readers an intimate look inside the lives of one of Hollywood's most beloved couples. David and Neil share a love of entertaining and their celebrations have become (wait for it) legendary. And now David wants to share his go-to recipes, party themes, music lists, decor tips, and Pinterest-worthy spreads with all of us.Whether your budget is minimal or unlimited, you'll be inspired by 100 fail-proof recipes inspired by seasonal ingredients. David also offers 16 party themes, complete with endless ways to mix and match dishes, create stunning decor, break out what to prep ahead, and how to get guests involved, that are sure to make every party a success. Readers will feel inspired by David's twists on comfort classics like Mini Loaded Potato Skins, Red White and Blue Potato Salad, and Grilled Chocolate-Hazelnut Cookies. You'll yearn for the next chance to celebrate so you can try recipes like Herbed Standing Rib Roast and Thyme and Gruyere Popovers. Plus, you'll find recipes for libations like Mojito Slushies and Charred Peach and Plum Sangria.Speaking with authority and easy charm, David makes planning the perfect party seem like a breeze. And--even if you aren't planning your next fete--David's recipes are delicious enough that you'll want to add them to your weeknight rotation.

Alpha Girls

Julian Guthrie

The Modern Shepherd

AlBaraa H. Taibah

Authors:

AlBaraa H. Taibah

There is no prophet who has not tended sheep. So goes a famous phrase in Islamic scripture, words that had long intrigued young MBA student AlBaraa Taibah. How does shepherding awaken one's wisdom? Empower one's leadership skills? Build one's character? Why was shepherding the starting point for great leaders like Mohammed, Moses and Abraham? There must be a reason and lessons in shepherding to take away, he reasoned.So AlBaraa made the decision to become a modern-day shepherd, to spend ten days alone with a herd of sheep in the Sahara Desert, attempting to learn what the scripture was talking about. Confronting the dangers of desert snakes, getting hopelessly lost in the dunes, and suffering from dehydration, on the first day he asks himself, 'Why didn't I just take that leadership course back in Boston?'What transpires is an adventure, a journey into consciousness, that is as poetic and funny as it is profound. The Modern Shepherd is a journal of personal discovery and a leadership textbook unlike any other. Learn and laugh with AlBaraa as he acquires the secret of being an effective leader from a stubborn flock of sheep.

Bing Crosby: Swinging on a Star

Gary Giddins

Authors:

Gary Giddins

Bing Crosby dominated American popular culture in a way that few artists ever have. From the dizzy era of Prohibition through the dark days of the Second World War, he was a desperate nation's most beloved entertainer. But he was more than just a charismatic crooner: Bing Crosby redefined the very foundations of modern music, from the way it was recorded to the way it was orchestrated and performed. In this much-anticipated follow-up to the universally acclaimed first volume, NBCC Winner and preeminent cultural critic Gary Giddins now focuses on Crosby's most memorable period, the war years and the origin story of White Christmas. Set against the backdrop of a Europe on the brink of collapse, this groundbreaking work traces Crosby's skyrocketing career as he fully inhabits a new era of American entertainment and culture. While he would go on to reshape both popular music and cinema more comprehensively than any other artist, Crosby's legacy would be forever intertwined with his impact on the home front, a unifying voice for a nation at war. Over a decade in the making and drawing on hundreds of interviews and unprecedented access to numerous archives, Giddins brings Bing Crosby, his work, and his world to vivid life--firmly reclaiming Crosby's central role in American cultural history.

On Point

WSJ. Magazine

We Are the Nerds

Christine Lagorio-Chafkin

Love and Other Words

Christina Lauren

Authors:

Christina Lauren

The heart may hide, but it never forgets.Macy Sorensen is settling into an ambitious if emotionally tepid routine: work hard as a new pediatrics resident, plan her wedding to an older, financially secure man, keep her head down and heart tucked away.But when she runs into Elliot Petropoulos - the first and only love of her life - the careful bubble she's constructed begins to dissolve. Once upon a time, Elliot was Macy's entire world - growing from her gangly teen friend into the man who coaxed her heart open again after the loss of her mother . . . only to break it on the very night he declared his love for her.Told in alternating timelines between Then and Now, teenage Elliot and Macy grow from friends to much more - spending weekends and lazy summers together in a house outside of San Francisco reading books, sharing favourite words, and talking through their growing pains and triumphs. As adults, they have become strangers to one another until their chance reunion. Although their memories are obscured by the agony of what happened that night so many years ago, Elliot will come to understand the truth behind Macy's decade-long silence, and will have to overcome the past and himself to revive her faith in the possibility of an all-consuming love.The first women's fiction novel from New York Times and No. 1 international bestselling author Christina Lauren (Dating You, Hating You).

Past Prologue

Diana Gabaldon, Steve Berry

Authors:

Diana Gabaldon, Steve Berry

An original short story from iconic thriller collection Match Up, edited by Lee Child, featuring a never-before-seen pairing between bestsellers Diana Gabaldon and Steve Berry .What happens when you bring together the 18th-century world of Diana Gabaldon and Steve Berry's modern-day hero Cotton Malone? The result is a rollercoaster ride of a short story set in the wilds of Scotland and spanning several centuries.For more exciting short story pairings, don't miss all eleven short stories in Match Up!

Life After Darkness

Michelle Knight

Authors:

Michelle Knight

Michelle Knight-now known as Lily Rose Lee-captured the world's attention May 2013, when she and fellow kidnapping victims Amanda Berry and Gina DeJesus were found and freed after years of imprisonment and torture. Michelle was a young single mother when she was kidnapped by a Cleveland school bus driver named Ariel Castro. Her story of the horrors she endured for more than a decade afterward, and the hope she sustained, became the #1 New York Times bestseller Finding Me in 2014. In her second book-to be published on the fifth anniversary of her escape-she answers the question: How do you heal after great tragedy? Organized thematically (finding hope, finding friendship, finding love), Michelle shares her experience of rebuilding her life, and offers her thoughts on how anyone who has suffered greatly can learn to find new meaning and purpose.

Moon Montréal

Andrea Bennett

The Other Lady Vanishes

Amanda Quick

Authors:

Amanda Quick

In the second installment of her new series, Jayne Ann Krentz/Amanda Quick takes us back to California, where Hollywood moguls and stars seeking privacy for scandalous trysts and wild parties come together in the glitzy set of the 1930s. . .The New York Times bestselling author of The Girl Who Knew Too Much sweeps readers back to 1930s California - where the most dazzling of illusions can't hide the darkest secrets . . . After escaping from a private sanitarium, Adelaide Blake arrives in Burning Cove, California, desperate to start over. Working at a herbal tea shop puts her on the radar of those who frequent the seaside resort town: Hollywood movers and shakers always in need of hangover cures and tonics. One such customer is Jake Truett, a recently widowed businessman in town for a therapeutic rest. But unbeknownst to Adelaide, his exhaustion is just a cover. In Burning Cove, no one is who they seem. Behind facades of glamour and power hide drug dealers, gangsters and grifters. Into this make-believe world comes psychic to the stars Madame Zolanda. Adelaide and Jake know better than to fall for her kind of con. But when the medium becomes a victim of her own dire prediction and is killed, they're drawn into a murky world of duplicity and misdirection. Neither Adelaide nor Jake can predict that in the shadowy underground they'll find connections to the woman Adelaide used to be - and uncover the spectre of a killer who's been real all along . . .

The Space Barons

Christian Davenport

Authors:

Christian Davenport

The visionary quest to rekindle the human exploration and colonization of space led by two rivals and their vast fortunes, egos, concern about the future of humanity, and visions of space as the next entrepreneurial frontierFor years, space enthusiasts have imagined people in spaceships colonizing the cosmos, and for more than four decades, US presidents have been predicting a real-life journey to Mars. Little progress, however, has been made since the halcyon days of the Mercury and Apollo programs--until now. Chris Davenport tells the story of the "Space Barons"--notably Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, but also Richard Branson and Paul Allen--and their unbelievably big ambitions to revive the US manned space program and reignite ancient dreams. These tycoons, with deep imaginations and deeper wallets, have ambitions to go far into space, well beyond the lower Earth orbit of the International Space Station. They are the founders of some of the biggest brands in the world--Amazon, Tesla, PayPal, Microsoft, Virgin--and have poured hundreds of millions of their own money into their new companies, betting that space tourism, asteroid mining, CubeSats (satellites the size of shoe boxes), and other new ventures will prove to be the next great technological revolution. For them, this is about more than monetizing space and space travel; it's exploration for exploration's sake: striking out with one destination in mind, but finding something else entirely. "Do we want," Elon Musk asks, "a future where we are forever confined to one planet until some eventual extinction event--however far in the future that might occur? Or do we want to become a multi-planet species, ultimately out there among the stars?"With an inside track on the businesses, rivalries, and rocketry that are fueling the new space race, The Space Barons is the story of how these billionaires plan to open the space frontier, extending humanity's reach and fulfilling the dreams of a generation.

Quirky

Melissa A Schilling

Social Startup Success

Kathleen Kelly Janus

Authors:

Kathleen Kelly Janus

Kathleen Kelly Janus, a lecturer at the Stanford University Program on Social Entrepreneurship and the founder of the successful social enterprise Spark, set out to investigate what makes a startup succeed or fail. She surveyed more than 200 high-performing social entrepreneurs and interviewed dozens of founders.Social Startup Success shares her findings for the legions of entrepreneurs working for social good, revealing how the best organizations get over the revenue hump. How do social ventures scale to over $2 million, Janus's clear benchmark for a social enterprise's sustainability? Janus, tapping into strong connections to the Silicon Valley world where many of these ventures are started or and/or funded, reveals insights from key figures such as DonorsChoose founder Charles Best, charity:water's Scott Harrison, Reshma Saujani of Girls Who Code and many others. Social Startup Success will be social entrepreneurship's essential playbook; the first definitive guide to solving the problem of scale.